


Something Human

by Zakodia



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No Kaiju, M/M, Torchwood AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-10-02 15:05:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17266403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zakodia/pseuds/Zakodia
Summary: Owen goes to a different pub and meets a different kind of man.





	1. Just a Couple Pints

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place somewhere during Season 2 but Owen doesn't die! Either time! Just a silly Torchwood/PacRim crossover I couldn't get out of my head, because I really think Owen and Newt would get along sort of maybe. Enjoy! And thanks for kudos and comments!

All Owen was looking for was a nice quiet pint. It had been a long day at work, what with the alien parasites and city-wide destruction narrowly avoided again. But he was out at home, and the stores were closed, so the pub around the corner would have to do. He’d only been here once or twice; the club being more his scene, because he was usually looking for a lay with a side of booze. But tonight was going to be different, he told himself; just a couple of pints to relax and then going home.  He stepped into the pub and took a seat at the bar. He ordered a pint before he took a second to look around. There was the normal crowd around playing pool with mates, or looking longingly on dates. He finally took notice of the man next to him, who appeared to be reading a dense academic paper with his pint.

 “What an asshole.” Owen thought to himself. He couldn’t resist teasing this guy. “What, the library wasn’t good enough for you?” he asked.

“The library doesn’t serve alcohol!” the man replied in a squeaky American accent.

“Oh good, an _American._ ” Owen sighed to himself. 

“Well what's it about then?” Owen asked.

“You don’t happen to know anything about advanced molecular biology, do you?” the guy replied.

“Actually, I do.  Dr. Owen Harper.” he replied, holding his hand out.

The man shook it eagerly, “Oh! Dr. Newton Geizler, though you can just call me Newt.”

Owen could see two sleeves of colorful tattoos peeking out from under Newt’s white shirt.

“Well Newt, what are you a doctor of?”

“Uhhhhh a few things really, Bio, Chem, Engineering, Music…” his voice trailed off.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

“Nah dude, I’ve been at MIT since I was 14! So I’ve had time.”

Oh great, Owen thought, the one time he decides to go to the bar he meets the only boy genius in Cardiff.  Well, at least he wasn’t half bad looking.

“And yourself?”

“Ah, I’m a real doctor.”

“Oooo, look at this guy everybody, a “real” doctor! Can you give me a checkup sometime?”

“Depends, I don’t work for free.”

“Another drink then.” Newt replied calling the bartender over.

“So … what lands you in Cardiff then, instead of MIT?”

“You wanna hear the normal reason or the crazy reason?”

“Both.”

“okay, normal reason is I hated my job, and was super stressed so they forced me on a sabbatical……which I then turned into a project on crypto-zoology. This … is usually the point where people pick up their drink and move to the other end of the bar.”

“No no, please continue.” Owen wasn’t about to admit to himself that he was excited about the possibility of this guy not being a total hack. He had spent too much time dissecting alien cadavers by himself, and the thought of being able to share that with someone with actual knowledge was frightening. Even if this guy was absolutely nuts, he might be able to still get a good night out of it.

“Oh, okay. So you asked why Cardiff? Well after much research I’ve found that England, and for some reason Cardiff in particular, have the highest numbers of sightings of strange creatures, disappearances, UFO’s, etc. in the world. So if I was going to do some crypto-zoology, I should go the place where I’m mostly likely to find it”

“Seems reasonable.”

“You don’t seem concerned in the slightest that I just ranted about aliens, basically for five minutes; so what kind of doctoring do you do? Something weird I’m guessing. Or you think I’m completely insane and you’re being polite.”

Owen felt himself getting nervous; he didn’t usually get this far when he was out, and he was cursing the lack of alien pheromones. Flirting was a lot easier with those in his back pocket.

“I…..I work at the coroner’s office - on strange cases specifically - people found under unlikely circumstances, religious rituals; you know, the weird stuff other people won’t touch.” He said quickly, hoping Newt wouldn’t notice his nervousness.

It wasn’t a total lie, a large part of his job was dealing with cadavers, alien or otherwise.

“Interesting.”

“And what about yourself? You can’t go around chasing aliens with no income, can you?”

Newt shifted in his seat and took a long drink before answering

“I uhhh, I….do 'independent consulting' for the military. But I can’t say much more about that, contracts and confidentiality agreements and all that you know” he said extremely quickly.

“Interesting.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, both seemingly holding their breath.

“So how far do these go?” Owen asked, his finger tracing the top of Newt’s arm; breaking the tension.

“How fast you want to find out?” Newt sighed in relief.

“My place is around the corner.”

* * *

 

Approximately two seconds had passed after Owen locked the door when Newt had him pressed up against it. His teeth grazed Owen’s collarbone before landing on his neck, leaving their mark. His hands fumbled with Newt’s buttons, eager to see what was underneath them. Owen let Newt’s quick hands guide his shirt off. He realized suddenly that Newt was the first since Diane. So much had happened since then, a few gunshots, a Weevil mauling, the usual workplace dangers. He avoided looking at himself in the mirror anymore. He let out a gasp as Newt sucked his nipple; apparently someone didn’t mind. He glanced down to see the colors on Newt’s chest had spread from his arms and were working their way past his belt. He pushed Newt towards the bed as his nails dug into Owen’s back.

“Bit of an exhibitionist, aren't you?” Newt whispered, nodding his head towards the impressive amount of windows surrounding the bed.

“Couldn’t I say the same about you?” Owen countered his hands running down the length of Newt’s chest, working their way towards his belt.

* * *

 

At about 5am Owen’s phone started buzzing.  It was Jack, of course.  Something or other had crashed, and it was time to go to work. Newt was snoring softly next to him, unbothered by the noise; Owen tried to shake him, but he was out. So he left him a note, detailing that he had work and that he could help himself to the kitchen and, as a bonus, he left his number.

At work he was distracted and nervously waiting Newt to text him; since he didn’t have his number. Usually his one night stands were just that, a good drink and a fuck and that’s it. But Newt….Newt seemed different. He was smart, good-looking and had his own sarcastic quips to match Owen’s. He was also a little crazy, which Owen liked because, hell, who wasn’t.  He himself worked in a secret base with a goddamn pterodactyl flying over his head so who was he to judge.

He was pacing, staring at his phone, thinking about the way Newt’s tattoos so delicately went down his thighs and complimented his…

“Girl problems?” said a voice from above.

“None of your fucking business problems.”

“Ah so boy problems then.” replied Jack as he came down the stairs.  Owen rolled his eyes.  “So that’s a yes then? Anyways, I need these scans analyzed by the end of today.”  he said, handing Owen a stack of papers and leaving. Owen was grateful for the distraction.

Owen’s phone finally buzzed in the afternoon

“Hey, great time last night 😉 Dinner later? I’ll meet you at your place”

Owen found Newt leaning on the wall outside of his apartment building, and he was struck again by his appearance. The way his hair seemed perfectly messy, the swirls of color on his arms that work their way under his sleeves, his glasses glinting under the lights.

“Come here often?” Newt asked as Owen walked up to him.

“On occasion.”

Newt grabbed Owen’s jacket and kissed him, hard. Newt was bold; Owen liked that about him. He tried to give people that impression, but he rarely followed it up with action.

“So are we actually going to dinner, or were you just planning on doing that all night?” Owen asked finally.

“You like sushi?”

They ended up at some tiny place Owen couldn’t be sure even really existed, it was so hidden. But it was good, and Owen once again was impressed with Newt. He seemingly had an unlimited amount of talents. Music, finding restaurants, kissing, biology, the list went on. Owen felt almost inadequate, but Newt seemed to enjoy his company. He asked many questions about Owen’s medical research, and answered Owen’s in return. They both avoided the topic of work and instead tried to focus on other interests. The night ended again at Owen’s place, a bottle of wine and trail of clothes later. Owen woke up to his phone buzzing again, his head on Newt’s chest and Newt’s arm over his shoulder.

“Fuck.” he thought to himself. He didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to wake Newt. He knew what was happening. He was falling again, the way he promised he would never do again. But it was inevitable, it seemed. There was always someone, but with that there was his cold mistress, Torchwood. A heartless bitch when it came to Owen’s relationships. The one who was calling him right now, tearing him away from the warmth of companionship. The world never changed. Owen sighed as he looked at the text and got up to get dressed. He’d deal with Newt later, now there were other things to deal with. He wrote a note and walked towards the door. He looked back one last time to see Newt had turned over to take up where Owen had left the bed, still warm. One day maybe he’d quit, have a normal life. But who the fuck was he kidding, work was too much fun to forget it all.

* * *

 

 

 The site was buzzing with activity as they pulled up in the SUV. “UNIT.” Jack sighed as he pulled up. There were military types everywhere, tents already set up and too many jeeps to count. Owen felt like they were very out of place, he preferred private missions. As he waited for Jack to finish talking to the commander, he heard a familiar squeaky voice ring out over the rest of the noise.

“Goddammit.” he said under his breath, and felt the urge to hijack the SUV and drive very, very far away.


	2. Bend and Snap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Owen be able to navigate workplace romance???

“Well let’s load this one up guys, not much to be done here, we’ll have to do the rest of the work at the HUB”

Owen sighed in relief, the less time they stayed at the site, the less likely he would be to run into Newt.

Except when out the corner of his eye he saw Newt bounding up to Jack and shaking his hand.

“Oh yes, how could I forget, Dr. Geiszler will be joining us today, he has some specific expertise on the subject that will be very helpful”

As Newt and the rest of team started packing up the object, Owen tried to look casual.

“Jack a word please”

“Yes”

“Wh—y—y are we letting more people into the HUB? We don’t know them, what if there a spy or something, what if UNIT is just using him for information, what if…”  


“I’ll have you know Martha hired and recommended him personally, and I trust her fully, so if you have a problem with Dr. Geiszler I suggest you work it out yourself” he said sharply and turned away.

“Goddammit” Owen growled, it was going to be an extremely long day.

As they got into the car, Newt had made no attempt to notice Owen’s presence or speak to him at all, which Owen was thankful for. Maybe Newt had more discretion than he thought.

Arriving at the HUB, Newt was locked in animated conversation with both Gwen and Tosh. It seemed everyone liked him. “This was good” Owen thought, “if they managed to make this out without a retcon incident, everyone would love his…..boyfriend?” The thought just appeared in Owen’s head out of the blue, he considered Newt closer than a casual fuck, but they’d only gone out twice, so maybe not boyfriend yet. Especially since he still had at least 6 more hours to avoid killing him at work.

He even complimented Ianto on his coffee, Owen was impressed. They finally made their way down to Owen’s lab, and Owen was desperately trying to ignore the knowing wink Jack had given him when he’d left, there was no way he could have figured it out that fast.

Lab coats on, gloves on, scalpels in hand they stood across from each other, the exam table between them. Owen kept his head down trying to focus on the task at hand which was dissecting this alien as quickly as possible.

“Sooooooooo, this is pretty funny right? Secret organizations and all that” Newt said softly, barely hiding the chuckle in his voice

 Owen stared at him in silence.

“Oh is that the game we’re playing today?, _Dr. Harper”_ Owen tried to stay focused, missing the smirk on Newt’s face and the glint in his eye. “Well game on then”

Owen turned on the radio in an attempt to stifle the talking, it worked for one song.

“So how long have you worked here?”

“So what would be your “special expertise” on this situation?” he replied, knowing Newt loved to talk about himself.

“Found one outside of Boston once, didn’t get very far before the FBI came by to pick it up”

“The FBI? Really? Did you live in the fucking X-Files?”

Newt shrugged, “I guess sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, you should know that by now. I got far enough to know that if you cut the wrong thing, there’s gonna be a lot of guts everywhere”

“Are you going to tell me what not to cut or let me figure that one out?”

“We’ll see how I’m feeling later, we aren’t even to the third layer of armor yet”

Owen rolled his eyes and tried to not notice his hand picking up the slightest tremble, or the temptation to start hacking at everything.

For his next trick Newt started singing along with the radio, loudly. A small smile tried to reach Owen’s lips before he turned it over into a determined frown. It was kind of cute really, his voice was pretty bad, but the dance moves were making up for it.

It seemed they had reached a momentary truce, each working on their side of the table, barely talking, realizing that work still had to be done.

Owen was concentrating so hard on not cutting the wrong vein, that he barely registered Newt behind him until he could feel his heartbeat on his back and his hand over his. 

“Oh, excuse me, I uh, need these” Newt whispered in Owen’s ear as he grabbed a pair of scissors from the tray.

“I could have just bloody handed them to you from over here”

“Oh well that wouldn’t have been as fun would it?” Newt replied as he sauntered back to his side of the table.

Another hour went by of Newt trying to lure Owen into polite conversation and replies of three words or less.

Owen nearly dropped his scalpel as the loud clang of a tray startled him. He looked up in time to be confronted by the back of Newt’s tight jeans, his round ass on full display as he bent over to pick up the tray.

“Oops, I guess I should be more careful about where I put my things” he said in voice Owen considered sickeningly sweet before winking and standing up to his full height.

Owen could feel the heat rising to his face and looked away quickly, he would not let Newt embarrass him, especially at work. He took a deep breath and refocused on the task at hand, not letting his mind wander to how Newt would look with his jeans on the lab floor.

Owen tried not to focus on the clock above Newt’s head, the more he looked at it, the slower time went. He was brought back by the sound of Newt trying to move the alien, bug, whatever it was on the table.

“Could you try not to….man-handle it so much? You’re going to destroy it”

 “That’s not what you were saying last night” Newt said quietly

“What?!”

“I said, that’s not what you were saying last night” Newt repeated, much louder this time.

Owen felt like he could slap the smirk right of off Newt’s face, instead he went to grab some coffee.

“Uhhhh things going okay down there?” Ianto asked as he handed Owen a mug.

“Yeah, yeah totally fine, he’s just a difficult personality to work with”

 Ianto sighed into his mug.

“Aren’t we all” he said walking away towards Jack’s office.

* * *

 

“Oh thanks Ianto” Tosh said as she accepted the hot mug

“Oh no, he’s going back down there” Gwen squealed. They were all huddled around a small monitor in Jack’s office, watching the security footage like the newest reality show.

“Maybe we should tell him” Ianto suggested “For everyone’s safety”

Jack laughed, “nah he’ll be fine, I think this Newt guy could take him, plus this is the most entertainment we’ve had in weeks”

Ianto sighed returning to the paperwork he was filing in the office, occasionally glancing over at the monitor. He didn’t always like Owen, but it seemed cruel to tease him, especially when him and Jack were able to do anything anywhere they liked.

Owen came down the stairs with two mugs, he was annoyed but he couldn’t deny anyone the human decency of coffee.

“Thanks babe” Newt said with a wink, as he accepted the mug. Owen rolled his eyes and tried to get back to work.

Another 30 minutes of silence, only the music and the sound of scalpels fading into the background.

“You wanna talk about this at all?”

Owen stared at him in the silence.

“Fine, nothing to talk about, nothing to talk about at allllll”

Owen couldn’t take it anymore, no more teasing, no more lying. He grabbed Newt by the lab coat and started whispering into his ear.

A simultaneous chorus of “Oh shit” sounded from Jack’s office.

“Look, when you leave here, someway somehow you will be slipped a pill that will make you forget everything you saw today, including me. You’ll forget everything about me. So my apologies if I was trying to save you from that fate, because believe it or not, I actually like you”

“Well I’m flattered but dude, be rational”

“Rational?!” Owen’s voiced raised in Newt’s ear “Everyone I’ve ever loved has either died or left because of my work, so you don’t get to act like…”

Newt started laughing again and Owen found he couldn’t continue.

“Man, you’re a cynic and a half, aren’t you? Look we both work for secret alien organizations, okay? You think they retconned Martha when she walked out? Well guess what they didn’t, and they aren’t going to retcon me either. Actually, I think this is the best situation for both of us”

He tried to shrug out of Owen’s grip, but Owen held on tight, staring at him deep in the eyes. He willed Newt to understand, to see the pain that Torchwood had caused. After a moment, Owen shoved him back and let go.

 “God you’re insufferable aren’t you?”

“And yet you loooove it” Newt replied, smoothing his coat.

“Yeahhhhhh maybe I should have told you that from the beginning” Owen heard Jack’s voice from overhead.

“Told me what?!” Owen replied as he ran up the stairs to see Jack face to face.

“That I knew you guys were shagging”

“I need a drink, I’m fucking out of here” he said throwing his coat in the chair. He would have slammed the door to the HUB if he could have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update? On my story?! Thank you for reading, there will be a chapter three....eventually..... As always kudos and comments are always welcome!


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